- Thursday, April 25, 2024
A new analysis reveals that most wheat that is produced in the UK is infected with a fungal disease called fusarium head blight (FHB), The Sun reports.
By: Kimberly Rodrigues
The WHO estimates that 1.7 million people die every year due to fungal disease and warns that deadly fungal infections are on the rise globally.
Now, a new analysis reveals that most wheat that is produced in the UK is infected with a fungal disease called fusarium head blight (FHB), The Sun reports.
Wheat is the main ingredient found in several starchy carbs and in everyone’s much-loved staple foods such as bread and pasta.
However, experts have warned that these foods can contain harmful fungal toxins that could pose a serious threat to human health.
According to experts, though FHB is not harmful to humans, the substance it produces, known as mycotoxin, can reportedly cause death.
In the UK, it was discovered that 70% of the wheat produced between 2010 and 2019 contained mycotoxins.
Also, according to the analysis published in Nature Food, one-quarter of the wheat was reportedly contaminated with several different mycotoxins.
And though the levels of mycotoxin and vomitoxin (a mycotoxin contaminant of cereals) were found to be within legal limits in the majority of the wheat in the UK, researchers from the Universities of Bath and Exeter reportedly said that the fact vomitoxin is found in so many of our foods is quite “concerning.”
However, Neil Brown, a scientist in the study from the University of Bath is quoted as saying, “It is not yet known how constant, low-level dietary exposure to mycotoxins can affect human health in the long term.”
Having said that, mycotoxins have previously been linked to liver cancer and kidney diseases.
Mycotoxins can also reportedly cause acute temporary vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, headache, and abdominal pain.
Addressing this topic in The Conversation, Neil writes, “raising concerns of synergism. “This is where toxins interact with each other and cause greater harm than the sum of the individual toxins acting alone.”
The WHO states that antifungal resistance has “major implications” for human health – this was mentioned in its first-ever report on the 19 fungal priority pathogens to beware of.
Apparently, many fungal pathogens, are becoming increasingly resistant to treatment. And this includes candida which causes common infections like vaginal thrush.
Fungal infections are reportedly “less common than other types of infection but can cause extremely serious disease or death,” affirms Professor Jon Cohen of infectious diseases at Brighton & Sussex Medical School.
Healthy people can mostly combat the infection due to a robust immune system, however, it can reportedly be life-threatening in those who are already ill and also those individuals who are immunocompromised.
